Nerdy Songs

Jason posted a tweet about writing songs this afternoon and I must have been in a particularly suggestible post-nap state and instantly came up with several extremely nerdy song titles. I think almost all of these fall into to Nerd Country n’ Western, but whatever. Here they are:

  • I’m Semantic, But Wow, You’re Well-Formed
  • Since You Left, I’ve Been in Plain Old Semantic Hell
  • Why Do Our Tags Have to Branch?
  • If You Won’t Mock My Markup, I Won’t Jeer Your Scripts
  • What’s in a DOCTYPE?
  • I Sold My Soul to the W3C, and All I Got Was a Long-Sleeved Tee
  • Baby, It’s Not Really a Microformat!
  • Let’s Go Home and Append Some Child Nodes to Your DOM
  • If You Leave, All I’ll Have is Twitter\
    I’m sorry. I really am, but you’re welcome to add to the nerdy nonsense in the comments…

Cry Baby

This post made me cry: Hungry.

Yay, presents!

Brian woke me up at 5 am ready to tackle and explore his many birthday presents. (Last night he was only able to check out a few before it was bedtime.) So far he has been flitting from toy to toy. His attention span has been reduced to 4.8 seconds because he is so excited to try them all. The one toy that he loves beyond all else? A 99 cents Hotwheels motorcycle. Sigh.

Brian the birthday boy!

Kevin is out of town for the day, so he can’t resize my pictures, like he does. Sorry. But whatev, the beauty still must be posted:

A very young Brian with very crazy hair.

Brian covered in cake at his first birthday party

Brian very happy to be in the pool and eating a rubber ducky.

Brian at his second birthday party

A very happy Brian in the snow.

Brian tries on my glasses.

Brian on a slide

Shut Up, Indeed

\
Next January can’t come fast enough.

Picture post!

This is the only photo of the four of us taken in the last three years. Sad, huh?

The Lawvers, all in the same pic!

I guess one of us is usually behind the camera.\
Three years earlier we had this taken. Too bad it’s in black and white:

black and white portrait of us, taken in November, 2004.

I want to get a real family photo, but I am obsessively paralyzed about finding clothes for the four of us that will coordinate. It’s really hard! I feel a whole new level of empathy for boy bands now.

On Morale

In my experience, the thing that has the most significant impact on a movie’s budget–but never shows up in a budget–is morale. [what’s true for a movie is true for a startup!] If you have low morale, for every \$1 you spend, you get about 25 cents of value. If you have high morale, for every \$1 you spend, you get about \$3 of value. Companies should pay much more attention to morale.\
I’ve had this quote pretty much plastered in my subconscious for the past month. It’s from Brad Bird, the guy who directed The Incredibles. You can read more from the interview over at Om’s site.\
You could replace “movie” with “project” or “product” and I think it’s still true. It’s next to impossible to motivate an team with crappy morale. It’s like trying to light a campfire in the rain with just matches. Having a high-morale team is like lighting a campfire covered in kerosene. You just need a match, and then stand back.

Kevin works hard for his money, so hard for his money…

They say you shouldn’t go grocery shopping when you’re hungry or else you’ll spend a fortune and buy everything. Well, apparently you shouldn’t go toy shopping when happy and energetic or else you’ll spend a fortune and buy everything. I finished up Brian’s birthday shopping today and went way overboard. I even bought stuff for Max! And stuff for our summer vacation! Mm, nothing for Kevin or me though. Drat. I should go back out, yes?

Max’s schoolwork, holiday edition

Why Mom Is So Special\
My mom is so kind and caring. She is loving with fifty-million cups of helpful. She is so thoughtful that a gallon of pure thoughtfulness is less thoughtful than my mom is. She works hard at keeping me healthy, safe, and happy. She’s a 170110! I trust her so much I let her now [know?] a secret that puts me at risk.\
Love,\
Max

Almost Made the Top Ten

The ratings from this year’s SxSW panels are out and the panel I moderated, Career Transitions: From DIY to Working for The Man was the 14th-ranked panel of the whole conference (out of 105)! We got a 4.55 out of 5 overall. It was a lot of fun and, of course, the panelists should get most of the credit: Jason Garber, Leslie Jensen-Inman, Cindy Li, and Thomas Vander Wal.\
Now, I need to figure out what I’m doing next year….